Today, I am reading and commenting on Proverbs 22-24.

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Today’s passage covers a lot of ground in the advice it gives regarding how to live wisely.  It begins by telling us that we should prefer being well thought of to being wealthy.  Alongside that the writer reminds us that the rich and the poor stand equally before God.  I want to point out that the translators’ note for verse 4 in Chapter 22 says that instead of reading, “The reward for humility and fear of the Lord is riches and honor and life,” it could be translated as, “The reward for humility is fear of the Lord, riches and honor and life.”  Considering the importance which the writer puts upon fear of the Lord (and the importance which he tells us it should have to us), I think perhaps that second reading is more correct.  Fear of the Lord is indeed a reward.  A reward which brings even more rewards with it.

Once again today I encourage you to read the passage and pick out one or two of the sayings in it to meditate on.  Nevertheless, I want to go a little further on themes the writer touches on.  He repeatedly warns against being a glutton or a drunkard.  Both of these lead one to ruin.  The writer links those two together and warns that they have similar impacts on your life.  I think he sees them as being closely connected…if you are a glutton, you are likely to also be a drunkard, and vice versa.  While he does not connect it with those two, the writer warns that laziness results in similar outcomes to gluttony and drunkenness.

I wish to point out one final piece of advice which the writer gives in today’s passage, and elsewhere in the Book of Proverbs.  He warns against being envious of sinners and evil men.  Such people devise violence and seek trouble.  They have no future.  We should be careful to not throw out lot in with them.  If we do, we will get caught up in the trouble they have brewed and have our future cut off.  Instead we ought to fear the Lord so that we see the future and enjoy the hope which God gives us.

I use the daily Bible reading schedule from “The Bible.net” for my daily Bible reading.